One Liner: High Cheese rating 90's Nashville country and a DWI PSA
Wikipedia Genre: Country
Home: Nashville (but originally from Vidor!)
Saturday.
Thoughts: Last here in 2023.
Oh hell yeah. The "Watermelon Crawl" guy! Amazingly, several of the other songs in his top ten are also familiar to me, even though when I started this listening experience, I legitimately thought that I had never heard of anything from Byrd. "I'm From the Country," "The Keeper of the Stars," and "Don't Take Her She's All I Got" are all classics. But they don't have nearly the stream count of "Watermelon Crawl," so you get to kick it off with that song about avoiding DWIs. 141.4 million streams (fascinatingly, up from 90.9 in 2023?).
His face in that screen grab looks a little like a young, unfurry Ted Cruz. That lady painting that sign and trying to sexily wipe away sweat with her forearm is amazing. Why is Byrd singing over his shoulder like that? Did he hurt his neck in a DWI incident and the State of Georgia made him write this song as a PSA? Also, have you ever been to the Luling Watermelon Thump? I went once and had a spectacular time. Pretty sure whoever drove me home that night, likely one of my cousin-in-laws who is now in law enforcement, did not participate in the watermelon crawl to get me home. Good times!
Oh no. The fourth most popular song is right where my bemused enjoyment of this ends. "Drinkin' Bone" is one of those awful, just deeply terrible country songs. "The drinkin' bone's connected to the party bone, the party bone's connected to the stayin' out all night long, and she won't think it's funny and I wind up all alone, and the lonely bone's connected to the drinkin' bone." Ooofff. I mean, he's not wrong, but that is just a terrible set of lyrics right there that lives up to all of the issues with country music of this ilk. The "Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo" song is also terrible schlock that feels like he is trying to copy Buffett/Jackson.
But then "The Keeper of The Stars" fires up - this is a great song! I had zero clue that it was by Tracy Byrd, but that is a cheesy-as-hell modern country classic. A love song, leaning on God, just righteous. That one is definitely a camp rodeo dance classic. 35.6 million streams.
Soft focus camera-work. Little girls with pigtails. The moon. A white dove. Bubbles! They used freaking bubbles! This video is cheese heaven. That song is apparently popular for weddings and also won Song of the Year at the 1995's ACMs.
57 years old, Byrd got his initial break in 1993 with a single called "Holdin' Heaven," which is still in his top ten but with a very low stream count relative to the rest of his popular tunes. Funny stuff, when I started it, I figured I had never heard it before, and then the chorus kicked in and I somehow know the whole dumb thing. The brain is weird, man. 7.1 million streams.
I don't understand what is happening. Do I actually like Tracy Byrd? This one feels like it could have been George Strait, or maybe Clay Walker. Despite my preconceptions, I like it!
Tracy Byrd is even his real name. That is probably more normal in country than in other genres. He grew up in Vidor, Texas, which has some sad history in the area of race relations. But is also the hometown of Clay Walker and Don Rollins, the guy who wrote "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere." He left Vidor and went to Lamar University and then Texas State. A friend talked him in to singing "Your Cheatin' Heart" at one of those mall recording studios (do you remember those? More on those in a minute) and the owner of the studio liked it so much he entered Byrd into a talent contest, leading to him signing with MCA Records. Discovered in a mall!
The mall recording studio!?!? I totally remember those! I never went in to one - I wasn't much of a mall person - but I absolutely recall those things existing. You could go into the "studio" and record yourself with a karaoke-style backing track, and they'd make you a tape or VHS of your sweet performance right there on the spot.
Reddit is telling me that the store was called Soundtracks. I can't recall, but that is awesome. I can't find much online about them, but I was always a little jelly of the people who went in there and got sweet recordings of their awesome singing...
His first eponymous album was 1993's Tracy Byrd, and then 1994's No Ordinary Man must have been the big hit, with several songs on there that I recognize. After that, 1995's Love Lessons has very low stream counts, and 1996's Big Love really only has "Don't Take Her She's All I Got." 1998's I'm From the Country has that title track as a big hit. After that, it's a wasteland of either the bad songs I outlined above or low stream stuff. Including the awful-looking All American Texan album from 2016 with songs like "Texas Truck" and "Only Jesus." "Texas Truck" actually sounds like he's trying to copy Lyle Lovett's "You're Not From Texas." "Don't Call Me Momma" kind of made me smile, as goofy as it is.
Anyway, Tracy freaking Byrd! Actually, pretty not horrible! I'm shocked. I literally just caught myself singing "I'm From the Country" while walking the halls a minute ago. What is happening.
